Cape of Good Hope

Set in the new South Africa, Cape of Good Hope, which opens November 11, is a colorful and vibrant slice of life about the power of love and hope, written and directed by first time filmmakers Mark Bamford, and his wife, cowriter and producing partner, Suzanne Kay (daughter of show business legend Diahann Carroll).

Cape of Good Hope tells the story of real people living real lives in a changing milieu. It revolves around three women and men whose paths converge at an animal rescue shelter. There’s Kate, the shelter founder, who seems to relate better to stray dogs than to people; Jean Claude, a refugee from war-torn Congo; Lindiwe, a single mother and housekeeper trying to make a life for herself and her son; a young Muslim couple dealing with infertility, and a recently widowed veterinarian who wants to believe that true love can strike twice.

"We're thrilled about the film opening in the U.S. as it shows a positive and uplifting side of Africa that's not often seen in the media. It's a story filled with romance and humor and touching characters that audiences anywhere will fall in love with," says Kay.

Entered in several international film festivals, Cape has won honorable mention at the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival, a jury prize for Best Film and an Audience Award for Best Feature in the Austin Film Festival as well as jury prize for Best Feature Length Film in the Starz Denver Pan African Film Festival.

Film critic Roger Ebert said Cape of Good Hope is a film “expresses a new freedom for South African cinema, where every single film no longer has to carry the burden of representing the entire nation to the world.”

Recent transplants to South Africa, Bamford and Kay found inspiration for Cape of Good Hope in their experiences working as volunteers with children and refugees. “That first year we were here was an incredible eye-opener, an intensive immersion, a crash course in South African life,” Bamford says.

Adds Kay: “We had friends from many different communities, wealthy whites, people from what they call a Coloured background, Muslims, Christians, members of the black Xhosa communities, refugees, these people became very familiar to us."

The beautifully told story, filmed entirely on location in the Cape Town coastal community of Hout Bay, and cast solely with African actors, replaces the clichés common among many films set in Africa for a story with a deep sense of humanism.